by Ed Greenwood
The lady escort's eyes widened in sudden hope.
Amglar regarded her gravely. "Well? Have we agreement?"
"We do," Belurastra said, eyes bright with unshed, grateful tears.
He smiled. The heels of his boots clicked together. "As to your query: slay you? Nay; I salute you. You've done something none of us dared to… and freed us of his idiocies just when we could no longer afford them."
A smile flickered across her face. Amglar realized it was because of his elaborate dignity-the boots he'd clicked together were all he wore. He grinned back at her, and said, "If you're so adverse to wearing breeches an' all, I'll see if they'll fit me."
Myarvuk came bustling in a few breaths later and looked sharply down at the body sprawled facedown on the floor, blood pooled about its head.
Amglar, resplendent in too short breeches, said briefly, "Spell went wrong. You're spellmaster of this sword now."
Myarvuk brightened. Then his eyes narrowed and he took a quick pace back, out of the swordlord's reach. "How can I be sure your next report to the steward won't contain a note of how I treacherously slew my master? I think I must know where we both stand… or if I must ensure that I'm very soon the only one still standing." He raised one hand threateningly, wriggling his fingers in a pantomime of spellcasting.
Amglar shrugged. "Save your spells for the foe, boy. Even if I did report that you killed Ondeler, 'twould not paint you ill in their eyes. You know that. Rest assured my reports won't say you had any part of it, unless you want me to write thus. Now stop prancing about trying to impress me, an' see what you can salvage of this carrion's"-he nudged the dead wizard with his foot-"magic, for your own use."
Myarvuk bent to his task eagerly, but stiffened a few breaths later when Amglar growled, "Just one other matter, Spellmaster. You don't need an envoy, an' Battledale doesn't need its best lady escort slain. If we are to have a deal, she stays here, unhurt-your witness, if you ever need one, that you weren't anywhere near when Ondeler so unfortunately left us."
Myarvuk nodded and shrugged. "No argument here, Lord." He bent gingerly to the body. "I don't suppose you-?"
"Nay, boy. Loot your own bodies… an' don't be all day about it. The Sword of the South rides out of Essembra as soon as it's light enough to see full quarrel range ahead. There'll be no scouting and creeping about, either. We ride looking for battle. Someone in Mistledale seems to want death, and I mean to bring it to him!" Ashabenford, Mistledale, Flamerule 16
"Clever battle strategies?" Florin asked, wrinkling his brow. "What clever battle strategies, Torm, do you think a force of seventy-twenty of whom are untrained farmers-can essay on the field? Against seven thousand?"
The thief shrugged. "The mighty battle mastery of gallant Florin Falconhand is a legend from the Dragon Reach to the Storm Horns, and shiny-eyed maidens await, breathless, for whatever Florin may have up his-"
"Don't push it, Torm," Florin said dryly, and snapped his visor down. His next words boomed hollowly from inside his fearsome great helm. "Armed with my reputation, I'm sure we can take the field with sixty-nine rather than seventy."
As the Knights around them chuckled, the ranger stood tall in his stirrups and waved his blade. "Ride out!"
The cry was echoed by the captain of the Riders, and all the horses surged forward eagerly. They were so few that the road took them easily.
More than one watching villager shook his head in disbelief at the calm manner of Mistledale's defenders. One of the riders-the woman with silver hair, who'd sat asleep and nearly naked in the window of the Six Shields several nights running-even laughed merrily at something the thief said to her. The three rangers riding easily behind her exchanged glances and smiles, and spurred their horses to pass her by, giving the watching folk of Ashabenford cheerful waves.
The villagers were not heartened.
One spat into the dust of the road and rumbled, "A handful against thousands! We'd best be packing the night through and try for Cormyr, I guess…"
"There's no safe place to ride to," the woman standing beside him said quietly. "I'll be staying on. They'll cut me down in my own fields, to be sure, but at least I'll die at home, on my own land, an' I'll not have run from anyone."
"Don't be daft! You want to die screaming, with half a dozen Zhent blackhelms laughing over you?"
"Nay, but the gods don't seem to care what I want-an' I don't even know the road to Cormyr. This is as good a place to die as any."
"A thousand warriors, and a thousand more, and many more besides, that merchant said," another villager said softly. "The Riders'll all be slain, sure. Yet hear them laugh!"
"Fools," the first villager grunted. "I'm off to pack. Who's with me?"
"I'll ride to Cormyr with you," said another. "Even if the gods themselves took the field with our Riders an' these Knights of Myth Drannor, there's no hope they'll win against so many."
There were many silent nods at these words, and the villagers sighed and turned away from the road. In the distance, the riders were little more than tiny moving dots now.
The war band left Ashabenford behind in a few breaths, riding easily east down the dale. The morning was chilly but clear, and as Florin looked around at his battle companions and the tranquil, sun-splashed farms on either side, he was happy. Much blood lay ahead-perhaps the ending of all their bright days-and yet he was doing what needed to be done, and folk needed him to do it. What more can anyone ask than to be needed and wanted and free to answer the call?
The captain was guiding her mount closer to his; Florin sidestepped his charger to meet her. "Aye, Lady?"
Captain Nelyssa's gray-green eyes met his, and her thin lips relaxed into a rueful smile. "I fret still, Florin. I know what we must do, and yet, to ride away and leave Ashabenford with not a sword to defend it… What if a dozen of them-nay, three of them, with ready blades-sneak past us through the woods? Who will defend the old men and maids then?"
"Harpers, Lady of Chauntea," Florin told her gravely. "Almost twenty of them, come to us from Twilight Hall in Berdusk with all the magic Lady Cylyria can spare. They will fight to hold Ashabenford even if we fall-and they carry the means to farspeak Twilight Hall and call on swift spell aid."
"Aye." The lady paladin looked troubled. "And spells themselves have become chancy things of late."
"Not all spells," Sylune put in as she rode on Florin's other side, "else I'd not be here now."
"And you are very much here," Torm purred from the saddle beside her.
"Stow it, clever tongue," growled the fat priest Rathan, who rode on the thief's other side, saddle creaking under his weight. "Ye're worse than a boar in heat!"
Torm favored his best friend with a complicated gesture that had nothing to do with casting spells.
"Tymora forgive ye," the priest said heavily, crossing his arms disapprovingly across his ample girth, "but I do not. Seven nights of abstinence shall be thy penance, I vow!"
"You'll have to chain me somewhere to manage that-and, of course, catch me first," Torm told him mockingly, ducking his horse smoothly around behind Sylune's mount.
Rathan sighed and waved at him in mock dismissal.
The captain of the Riders watched with interest. "Can yon thief run at any speed?" she asked Florin.
"Watch him during the battle," Florin told her dryly. "There're few folk-even winged things-that can keep up with his retreat."
In reply to this, Torm treated the ranger to an even more intricate gesture. Nelyssa's eyebrows rose. "Droll fellow… did he succeed at thieving by outrunning guards?"
"No," Florin told her, not quite smiling. "Just by staying alive this long. And he did that by outrunning husbands."
Nelyssa rolled her eyes. "I can see we're going to have to watch ourselves," she said sarcastically.
Torm turned in his saddle, winked at her, and then leered at the Shield of Chauntea until she curtly ordered to him to scout ahead.
Laughing, Torm waved and galloped away.
"Of course, Shar," they said together, and the three horses leapt ahead as one.
Sylune watched the three rangers pull away and sighed. "I've grown used to them," she told Florin. "See you at the battle." She urged her mount into a canter.
"We're only going to Swords Creek!" Florin said in amused protest. "Torm's probably reached it by now!"
"All the more reason for my being there in haste," Sylune told him severely. "The less time I give him on his own, the less I'll have to patch or set right!" And she was gone, galloping hard through the black-armored ranks of the Riders. Some of them amusedly watched her go; others cast appreciative glances at the silver hair that streamed out behind her as she crouched low over her horse's neck.
"Are your Knights always this pranksome?" Captain Nelyssa Shendean asked Florin quietly, visions of chaos on the battlefield rising before her eyes… chaos that could kill them all.
Florin gave the Shield of Chauntea a smile that had cold steel in it. "Usually far worse than this," he told her. "They're taking it gently so as not to upset you, I'd say."
Nelyssa sighed-and then her eyes widened in horror as she realized he wasn't jesting. Her hand went to the electrum earth pendant around her neck and brought it to her lips. "Mother Chauntea, preserve and shield us," she murmured feelingly.
An instant later, the ground rumbled under the hooves of the hurrying horses, rocking them all. As startled men cursed and hauled at their reins around her, Nelyssa looked around at Mistledale with a sudden, dazzling smile. Then she stood up in her stirrups, whooped, drew her sword, swung it in a wild, flashing salute to the sun overhead, and galloped off toward Swords Creek in tearing haste, scattering astonished Riders in all directions.
Florin met Rathan's gaze. He took in the priest's eloquently raised eyebrows, and shrugged. "We seem to have that effect on folks," he observed. "Tymora should be happy."
"Oh, she is," Rathan told him. "Wherever we go, the entire Realms around seems to be plunged into taking wild chances."
"I've noticed that," Florin said in dry tones. "It's not a state of affairs to everyone's taste."
The stout priest of Tymora shrugged in his turn. "Their loss," he said piously, "and Faerun's gain. May Tymora smile upon ye in the battle, Florin."
"And upon thee, stout heart," Florin told him. Rathan looked sharply at the ranger's innocent smile, and found it not quite innocent enough. He snorted and spurred away, leaving Florin alone with the Riders of Mistledale.
The ranger caught a few questioning looks from the black-armored armsmen around him, and smiled. "Easy, lads. There's no need to rush into our graves. The gods wait for us all."
"There're going to be gods at this battle?" one of the Riders asked fearfully.
"Now, lad, let's not get our hopes up," an older Rider said with a grin. "You've got to save some excitement for your next battle!"
The younger Rider swallowed. "If I live to see another one," he whispered, "I'll begin to worry about such things, Ostyn."
"That's the spirit!" the older Rider told him. "Cast your worries aside, and ride on into battle!"
The young Rider looked at him with a very white face and said nothing.
"Keep track of kills, shall we, lad?" Ostyn proposed. "See which of us can slay the most Zhents?"
The younger Rider stared at him for a moment-and then fainted dead away, his eyes rolling up as he slid limply from his saddle.
Florin made a grab for the falling Rider's shoulder, caught him, and snapped, "Get the reins, Ostyn!"
The older Rider did so, deftly, and they guided the mount to an ungainly halt.
The rearguard Riders caught them up. "One down already?" a fat, cheerful woman asked, looking at the limp form across Florin's lap. "We'll have to ask the Zhents to hold a thousand or so swords in reserve."
"You're volunteering to ask them?" Florin chuckled as they righted the young Rider in his saddle and shook him gently back to his senses.
"Never volunteer," Ostyn warned her.
"Actually," she said, indicating the reviving Rider with her sword, "I was going to nominate him."
The young Rider's eyes snapped open. He stared at her for a moment, face as white as a priest's vestment-and then, still staring, slid out of his saddle again.
They let him fall to the ground this time, stared at each other, and sighed.
4
Softly Come the Storms
"Hold up, there!"
One moment the road ahead was empty, but the next, a stern-looking, ragged crone with the largest, wartiest nose Torm had ever seen was standing calmly in front of his cantering horse, hand raised, bidding him halt.
Startled, the thief hauled hard on the reins. The war horse under him skidded in the dust as it reared, bugling, and came to a halt, lashing out with steel-shod hooves.
The woman regarded it calmly. "An excitable animal-and you must be the illustrious Torm that the ladies of Twilight Hall have told me so much about." She turned away, hands on hips, and then turned back to him and asked curiously, "Did you really get a certain part of your anatomy caught in a closet door in Zhentil Keep, or was that just a fireside tale?"
Torm sputtered. He'd just noticed that the woman, in her kerchief and ragged dress, was standing in midair, her muddy, ill-fitting boots a good three feet off the ground. A merry gale of laughter came from Sharantyr, Belkram, and Sylune as they reined their mounts in around him. Itharr merely shook his head in smiling silence.
"Well met, Margrueth," Sylune said, eyes dancing in welcome. The old woman looked her up and down.
"Got yerself a new body, have you? Hmmph. No one offers me a new body to replace this old, aching barrel! I could get used to yours, really I could. Silver hair and all."
"You wouldn't want to go through what I have," Sylune told her softly. "Really, you wouldn't."
"Gods, girl-I know that!" Margrueth told her. "I'm old and ugly, not witless! Just envious, that's all."
"If you're a sorceress," Torm asked her curiously, "why don't you choose any looks you want?"
Margrueth glared at him sourly. "That would work for snaring a man for a night of pleasure-if, like some folk here, stolen nights of pleasure were what I wanted!"
She let the rebuke hang in the air between them, but Torm merely shrugged, so the old Harper went on. "Sooner or later, though-with my luck, sooner-the one I was with'd see the real me. I'd not hide it, mind; the real me is the one I'm proud of. Some of us value honesty over deceit."
"Some of us must be fools," Torm returned sharply, causing Rathan to chuckle as he slowed his horse to join the group of riders.
"Fool I may be," Margrueth told him, "but I could be in worse straits than this!" She gestured at her nose, and swept her hand down at her fat, shapeless body.
"How?" Torm asked, falling into the trap.
"I could have your looks," she told him sweetly, and turned away. Then she turned back again. "It did get caught in that door, didn't it?"
There was a general hoot of laughter, and Torm snarled and urged his mount forward-only to find that the stout old woman flashed through the air to block his way once more.
"I stopped you for a reason, Lord Torm," she told him severely. "Beyond this point our traps start, and the road ceases to be safe-even for thieves with clever tongues and more luck than Tymora gives anyone! Yonder is Swords Creek."
Torm looked at the little rivulet meandering its muddy way across the fields, and asked curiously, "Why Swords Creek for our stand? Is it just a place easily found among all these fields?"
"Mistledale tradition," the captain of the Riders said from behind him. She brought her horse to a halt in a wild thudding of hooves. "On these banks many battles were fought of old."
"And we Harpers've been here since yestereve, preparing it for one more," Margrueth added. "Water spells to make the ground sodden and turn wet spots into bogs to bre
ak Zhent cavalry charges, wild magic areas there and there-no, Torm, you can't see them-for the foe to halt in, and suchlike."
" 'We Harpers'?" Torm asked. "Aside from you, I can see only two men."
"Ah, that's because they're not done yet," the old woman told him. "The others're in hiding already."
"Hiding? Where?" Torm asked, looking around at apparently empty fields. "Are they all mages using invisibility?"
"No. Not one," she replied with a smile.
Torm shook his head. "There's not a man alive who could hide under my nose between here and that creek."
As the words left his lips, the thief felt a solid tap on his left boot-and his war horse reared again. Cursing, Torm wrestled to keep it from leaping forward; he was struggling to head the snorting beast around, away from the creek, when Captain Nelyssa's strong arm caught hold of the bridle. The paladin pulled and whistled, and Term's mount quieted immediately-allowing the thief to cleverly fall off.
As he bounced on his belly in the dust, Torm found himself staring eyeball to eyeball with the grinning cause of his upset: a dust-covered man buried neck-deep in the earth, who held a sword, hilt uppermost, in one hand. It must have been what had tapped his boot. In his other gauntleted hand, the man held a shield that had been so thickly covered with turf and grass that it had served to entirely conceal the hole he was crouching in.
"Ye gods!" Torm gasped.
"No, even being one god'd be a promotion, I think," the Harper replied cheerfully. "Fine morning to be out on the grass,'taint it, Lord?"
The riders all around them roared with laughter at Torm's expression-until the thief buried his nose in the grass and laughed along with them. He nodded to the Harper, rolled to a sitting position, and squinted up at Margrueth. "Right, then, I'll grant you the victory. So tell me how many more of these little holes have you scattered around Mistledale?"
Margrueth shook her head soberly. "That, I'll tell no one. Spying spells that listen to speech from afar aren't easily blocked out in the open."